


A Dornish Smile

by acrownofwinterroses



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:35:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25051009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrownofwinterroses/pseuds/acrownofwinterroses
Summary: Alone in Maegor's keep, as King's Landing is destroyed around her, Elia Martell dreams of Dorne and tells herself all will be well, as her thoughts drift to all that was and all that has been lost.
Relationships: Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	A Dornish Smile

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is my first time writing Elia and my first time ever writing fanfic as well, so I'm still working out how I write her etc. and my version of her isn't perfect yet. A lot of this is based on my own personal hcs as well :)

The glaring sunlight of noon beat down upon the ancient, thick stones of the keep, in a way that was cruelly reminiscent of the castles and palaces of Dorne. 

Oh, Dorne. Don’t think of Dorne. You’ve wept enough today, and it’s only noon. 

She touched the surface of the stone, and closed her eyes, feeling damp eyelashes resting on her face. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to imagine that this was home, that this was Sunspear, that this was Dornish sun shining down on Dornish stone, and she was in Dornish dress, in a Dornish building, surrounded by Dornish people. People like Oberyn, and Doran. People who would look at her, and smile. Smile because it was her, and it brought them joy to see her. No-one had smiled at her like that in months. She dug her fingernails into the hard, weathered surface, willing it to be true. 

Apart from the children, of course. The jewels in the crown of her life, the only ones left, the others separated by mountains or miles of sea, or smashed to pieces by warhammers. Their smiles were Dornish smiles, toothless smiles that lit up their faces like the summer sun, and hers too. They would do well in Dorne. They could be happy there. 

She had wanted to take them back as soon as she knew it was true, the day that she had forced herself to look into his face, and not admire the sharp lines of his features, but lock eyes with his violet ones, and not melt, but to see the truth. And the truth gazed back at her, what he saw in his mind’s eye reflected in his real one, dark hair and grey eyes, a silver brooch in the shape of a wolf’s head, and cobalt blue roses, entwined around each other like a lover’s embrace. 

A lover’s embrace. If only she knew what that was. 

Or had she known, in a different life, the life before Harrenhal? The Elia before Harrenhal? That Elia is still here, she told herself. That Elia is you, and she is not gone, she did not leave or disappear because of a crown of roses balanced on the edge of a lance. She is better than that. That Elia, this Elia, both, whichever, it didn’t matter, as no-one seemed to give a moment’s thought to either of them, had wanted to take her children home to Dorne, where she’d know which Elia she was. But they were not just her children, they were his too, and they had always been. Their violet eyes stared back at her, bright and glittering, and they’d do so in Dorne or in King’s Landing, or in the Shadow Lands of Asshai. 

It was strange having Valyrian children. It felt odd, special, important, as if they had held wisdom and abilities far superior to those of their mother’s, from the moment of birth. The word “birth” still made her shudder, yet she had still been running those memories over in her mind often recently, reflections of better times. She was going to die, she had thought, as pain convulsed through her body, every inch of her shaking, her fingers numb, she was going to die, she would never see Rhaegar or little Viserys or Ashara or Oberyn or Doran again, she was going to die right here on this bed … but then she had heard the first wail, and those deep, violet, Valyrian eyes had looked into hers for the first time, and they didn’t care that she had barely a drop of Valyrian blood in her veins. Elia’s dark hair and olive skin and Rhaegar’s deep purple eyes clashed severely. It looked beautiful on her daughter. 

Aegon was fully Valyrian, with porcelain skin and silver-gold hair, as if he had been brought into the world by the wife of an ancient dragonlord, in a city that gleamed and shone in darkness, a beacon illuminating every nook and cranny of the world. The dragonlords did not have tourneys, as far as she knew. No winter roses grew in Valyria. No Stark women resided in its marble halls. 

Not that for a second she felt any drop of animosity. Of course, a vague whisper of jealousy had arisen from the depths of her mind once or twice, but she squashed and repressed in and held it back. Elia had been fifteen once too. If Rhaegar had come along then and offered to sweep her off her feet, she would have tripped over herself trying to climb on the horse in her eagerness. Not that he would have, though. She had always been unremarkable and gawky, but at fifteen she was still awaiting the sparse few improvements in appearance womanhood would bring her. Besides, she didn’t even know how she felt about him at all. Everything was so muddled and convoluted, and drenched in confusion and fear and insecurity. She had never managed to really figure out how she felt about him, how he felt about her, and the arrival of Lyanna in their lives had only made things more confusing.

No, Lyanna Stark seemed sweet and kind and gentle, and Elia worried even for her. They were a family, of sorts, in the most bizarre of ways, and she thought often of what would befall her should the rebels win this ghastly war. Elia was good at reading people, and Robert Baratheon did not seem like the hero he presented himself as. Having him for a husband seemed a cruel fate. She had heard tales of his salacious deeds. Elia would help, if she could, if she had any power to, although it seemed as if any she had ever had had been seeping into the very walls of this wretched castle since the moment Rhaegar left. 

But there was no place for her in a Baratheon’s seven kingdoms. A Baratheon’s seven kingdoms. What a horrible thought. If her side won, (which they had to, please, so that Rhaegar didn’t die for nothing) then she could go back to Dorne, and raise his children there, and tell them tales of how their father died with the bravery of a warrior from the Age of Heroes, the rubies on his chest gleaming as he raised his sword in the name of love. She may even, after a few years had calmed the shaking of her soul, find someone else, someone who hated tourneys and never went to them. If the rebels won, they may send her back. They may not wish to incite Dornish wrath. They may send her back. 

Or they would kill Rhaegar’s widow, kill Rhaegar’s children, just as they had done to him. Finish the deed.

Princess Elia Martell was thoroughly sick and tired of being thought of as nothing but “Rhaegar’s widow.” 

She had been a person before him, and she still was afterwards, albeit with a heart that was fractured and bruised, and a body weakened, with skin stretched taut, from childbirth. 

The sack of King’s landing had been happening in front of her nose all morning, yet she was filling her head with trivial thoughts such as these. This was deliberate. Those who lived in the castle talked of the inhabitants of the city as if they were parasites, or cockroaches, but Elia loved them. She had noble blood, but she had never seen any difference between her and the women who shouted and spun and shone on the cobbled streets. She was no Valyrian. She and the smallfolk were one and the same. To think of them being subject to such terrors as she could only imagine made her want to scream and bang her fists against the unforgiving stone walls and tear her thick dark hair out. And she may well have, at this stage in her life, this point in time so shrouded in gloom and despair, had she not been holding the child.

However, the screams had begun to penetrate even Maegor’s keep. Or maybe they weren’t, maybe it was all in her mind, maybe she was going mad like Aerys, maybe spending so much time alone with the ghosts of Maegor the Cruel and his pitiful brides had addled her brain. She had been told to stay put, though, Aerys’ express orders, stay put. Elia wasn’t afraid of him - Rhaegar never had been, and she took her cues from Rhaegar, trying to be as brave as he was- but the high-pitched note in the mad king's voice, the snarl, the way he gestured wildly and waved his hands erratically when he was upset, made her skin crawl, and set her teeth on edge. 

She would stay here, like he had ordered. It would be fine, they had told her. 

And now she told it to herself. It would be fine. No stag, or even a lion, could topple a dragon, even one as pitiful and pathetic as Aerys. The knights were brave, the sentries vigilant, the soldiers plentiful. It ached to see King’s Landing destroyed, the smallfolk terrorised, but those in the castle would be safe, and later would help them rebuild. She was safe in the keep, Viserys and Rhaella were safe at Dragonstone, Lyanna was safely tucked away, in one piece, even if her heart had been shattered along with her lover's chest. Rhaegar was hopefully in a better place, at peace. Rhaenys and her kitten were playing in one of their hidey-holes, she knew. Elia would not spoil their fun by calling them back here. And Aegon was safe too. 

She sat back in the old wicker chair, holding the child close, and closed her eyes. She cleared her mind of frosty blue petals, of rubies shimmering at the bottom of rivers, of swords and shields and morningstars. She thought of sun,and sand-coloured stone. She thought of Dorne. She thought of home.


End file.
